Italy · Summer 1867Part of: The Quaker City excursion · 28 of 39
28 · Jerusalem · 19 – 28 Sept
The tomb of Adam
Trip details
- When
- 8 Jun – 19 Nov 1867
- How long
- 165 days
- Who went
- Me, sixty-odd pilgrims, and the Doctor, Jack and Dan
- Stops
- 39
- Getting around
- The Quaker City, trains, a great many horses and one donkey
We came over the last hill on a hot morning, and there was Jerusalem, a grey city with a wall round it and domes inside, sitting on its hills very quietly, as if it did not know what had been said about it. It is small. You could walk round the wall in an hour, and I did, and was back in time for lunch, and was ashamed of myself, because one ought to take longer over Jerusalem.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre holds, under one roof, very nearly everything that happened in the last chapters of the Gospels. The place of the crucifixion is upstairs. The tomb is downstairs. The place where the body was anointed is by the door. In between, the guides will show you the pillar He was bound to, the place the soldiers cast lots, the place where the cross was found, and a great many places where somebody else did something, for a fee.
Adam
And at the end of a passage, under a low arch, they showed us the tomb of Adam. I had not expected it. I had not known he was buried in Jerusalem, or anywhere. But there it was, and the guide said it was so, and a great wave came over me there in the dim light. Here lay my ancestor. The father of us all. The first of the family. I leaned on a pillar and wept. A man should be moved at the grave of a blood relation, however distant, and I have never been a man to deny family.
Six thousand years he had waited for one of the family to come and visit. I was glad it was me, and not Dan.
| Relic | Where | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Pieces of the True Cross | Everywhere | Enough, by my count, to build the Quaker City, with a little left over for a melodeon. |
| The tomb of Adam | Jerusalem | Wept. See above. |
| The stone the Saviour sat on | Three places | He must have been tired, and I do not wonder at it. |
| The house of Simon the Tanner | Jaffa | Still a tannery. You can tell from the road. |
| The milk grotto | Bethlehem | The guide's story about it was the one thing in the Holy Land I could not bring myself to doubt out loud. |
| Lot's wife | The Dead Sea | A pillar of salt, said the guide. A pillar of something. |
We stayed nine days in Jerusalem, and rode down to Bethlehem and the Dead Sea and the Jordan, where the pilgrims filled their bottles and I filled my boots. I came away more confused than when I came, which I am told is the usual effect of the place on everybody, and has been for some time. But I would not have missed it. Nobody should.
Read nextThe price of a boat on GalileeThe week before, and the one quiet hour.